A printable Five Tribes log lives or dies on the one record nobody keeps: the final tally itself, because Five Tribes is won on seven different kinds of points added together at the end, and one of them is a pile of coins every player keeps face down for the whole game. Gold coins are worth 1 point each, viziers are worth 1 point each plus a 10-point bonus for every opponent who holds strictly fewer viziers, elders are worth 2 points each, djinns are worth their printed values, palm trees on tiles you control are worth 3 points each, palaces on tiles you control are worth 5 points each, and the tiles your camels sit on are worth their printed values, with goods sets adding their own series points on top. Nobody at the table argues about whether a move happened; they argue about how many viziers each player actually holds, whether a palm tree sat on a controlled tile or an unclaimed one, and how many coins were really in that face-down pile.
The mancala move is where the argument starts, because a move is only legal if it ends right. On your turn you pick up every meeple from one tile and drop them one per tile along an orthogonal path, and the last meeple you drop must land on a tile that already holds a meeple of the same color, or the move is illegal and the path has to be re-planned. You then collect every meeple of that color from the final tile, and if that empties the tile you place one of your camels on it and claim its printed value for the endgame. Then you take the tile action: an oasis gains a palm tree, a village gains a palace, a market lets you buy goods, a sacred place lets you claim a djinn. Viziers and elders go in front of you and stay visible, but coins stay hidden, bids for turn order are paid in coins that are also points, and the game ends when a player places their last camel and the round is completed, or when no legal mancala move remains at all.
The worked scoring line is the part buyers actually check before they trust the sheet. Take player A, who ends the game with 12 gold coins, 5 viziers against B's 4, which is 5 points plus the 10-point majority bonus for 15, 2 elders for 4 points, djinns worth 7, 2 palm trees on controlled tiles for 6 points, no palaces, and controlled tiles worth 10, for a total of 54. Player B has 16 coins, 4 viziers for 4 points and no majority bonus, 3 elders for 6 points, djinns worth 8, 1 palm tree for 3 points, 1 palace for 5 points, and controlled tiles worth 9, for a total of 51. The line reads: A, coins 12 plus viziers 15 plus elders 4 plus djinns 7 plus palms 6 plus tiles 10, total 54, against B at coins 16 plus viziers 4 plus elders 6 plus djinns 8 plus palm 3 plus palace 5 plus tiles 9, total 51. A wins by three points, and every one of those points came from a different pile.
The counterfactuals are what make the log worth printing rather than scribbling. If A had collected one fewer vizier across the game, A would tie B at 4 viziers each, lose the 10-point majority bonus outright, and fall from 54 to 43, which is an 11-point swing on a single yellow meeple, and the reason every vizier claimed is logged the turn it is taken. If B had placed one more palace on a controlled village tile, B would gain 5 points and rise from 51 to 56, winning outright, which is why every palm and palace is logged against the tile it sits on and whether a camel controls that tile. And if A had bid 3 more coins for turn order during the game, A would sit at 51 and tie B, because every coin spent on bidding is a point that never reaches the tally.
That is why the sheet sells as a download rather than as a blank score pad. A blank pad records a final total nobody can audit; a worked score-and-claim log records the decision the table actually argued about, with each player's coins, viziers, elders, djinns, palms, palaces, and claimed tiles all on the same line, so the final tally falls out of the sheet instead of out of a twenty-minute recount. Print it, update one line per move and per claim, and the next time someone says their viziers were worth fifteen points, the answer is on the paper, not in anyone's memory.
This is an unofficial fan-made log sheet, not affiliated with or endorsed by Days of Wonder. Five Tribes is a board game designed by Bruno Cathala.
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